Keep The Faith filly Jessica Rose justified a change of strategy
by trainers Mat Ellerton and Simon Zahra at the Bendigo stand-alone
meeting on Saturday.

Jessica Rose (3f Keep The Faith - Strawberry Rose by Snippets) had
scored on debut at Caulfield in December 2010 but had gone nine starts
before her latest victory in the $50,000 Bendigo Community Hcp (1000m).

The Flemington based filly led home a Keep The Faith quinella from
Sutton Grange filly Incredulous. Her stablemate Red Rain (Charge
Forward) finished another two lengths away in third place.

“She had been running really well in Group company without winning,”
Ellerton explained. “Trying to stretch her out was probably a mistake
so we decided to keep her short and sharp this time in.”

Jessica Rose showed the benefits of the new training regime with an
encouraging second to Miss Octopussy at Flemington on March 3 before
breaking through at Bendigo. “She balanced up off a pretty hot speed
with a well-timed finish,” Ellerton said. “She’s come back in distance
this prep and hopefully she can keep hitting the line.”

Keep The Faith (Sunday Silence) has generated 42 individual first-crop
winners at a 60% strike-rate. Jessica Rose is a member of his second
crop and there have been 26 individual winners to date at a 57%
strike-rate.

Jessica Rose was a $17,000 buy for popular owners Barrie and Midge
Griffiths at the 2010 Inglis Melbourne Autumn yearling sale. She is
from a winning half-sister to Group 1 stayer Linton.

The Seymour couple will be hoping her residual value increases with some
black-type this year. Ellerton - Zahra Racing has built up a
marvellous track record with their mares winning stakes races with
Response (Charge Forward), Booklet (Tale Of The Cat) and Royal Commands
(Commands).

Barrie and Midge have been based at Northwood Park since 1977 and
retained a portion of the property after selling up to Sheikh Mohammed
six years ago.